My weeks are long. Some weeks seem so impossibly long, that by the time Friday rolls around I am fairly certain I will not make it through. One too many e-mails, phone calls, appointments, meetings, bills, arguments, conflicts, worries . . . what have you. I do, of course. We all do. No matter what happens, we are all usually gifted with enough . . . (What? Oomph? Chutzpah? Will? Determination! Yeah. Let’s go with determination.) determination to make it through those days and weeks when the challenges seem to outweigh the triumphs.

This was one of those weeks. This month has kind of been (mostly) made up of these weeks. Why? Didn’t 2014 get the memo that this year was supposed to be the best? Did the Universe not understand that I had big plans to be better – AT EVERYTHING? Better wife, better mother, better friend, better, better, better….

Better s-l-o-w down there, missy, because you are setting yourself up for a major face plant on the floor of this shiny New Year!

Where was I? Oh yes! Long week. You “get” it, yes? Great. Moving on.

This week I didn’t even make it until Friday before my mettle was tested. Bare in mind, in many ways, it’s tested on a daily basis for various reasons. Some of which are typical, run-of-the-mill, everyday annoyances that everyone experiences to one degree or another. Some, well… some are unique to my situation as the mother of, and the wife of, some pretty interesting individuals. (To be clear, I just have the one husband, but I am confident he’d agree that he is definitely an individual!)

Maybe I put a bit too much pressure on myself? Maybe thinking my very first blog entry should be so gripping and interesting that it would catch the eye of a kind audience of readers who would all declare, “I laughed. I cried. It moved me!”, was a bit ambitious? When I think about it logically, I have to agree that it is possible.

I mean, just since I started typing at my laptop, here, in my kitchen (where I must stand to type because “laptop” is a bit of a misnomer for my “Frankenputer” now, but I digress…) I have been interrupted no fewer than five times by Thing 1 who is currently playing Clumsy Ninja on my iThing and is just so excited by every. single. new. thing. his Clumsy Ninja pal does, he can’t help, but interrupt to share all the fun with me. Forget that there are two other people here who would be happy to listen. Forget that his little sister might actually really love to hear what he has to say, so she can try to do a similar thing with her Ninja. He comes to me. Me. Always me. It’s lovely, really. It is also, if I am to be honest at all, exhausting. However, his enthusiasm is pure joy and when he cheekily asked a few minutes ago, “Was it worth it?” I just smiled and kissed him and agreed that, yes, it was. Watching that chicken, with 5 balloons attached to her back, floating up into the cartoon sky was totally worth my losing my train of thought. And it was. This is my life.

So, yes, perhaps I made a bit of a mountain out of a molehill where this particular endeavour is concerned. Okay. I’ll get over myself.

This week was a challenge from stem to stern. Thursday’s mail came with not one, but two scary letters. The kind that make you catch your breath. The kind that make you wonder why you bother trying to be a good, fine, upstanding citizen. The kind that you are 100% certain will have nothing good to say on the inside of their envelopes. The kind, that though you are digging deep and putting your inner Pollyanna on high alert for a serious dose of positivity, you just know nothing good can possibly come from. The kind, worst of all, that you can’t do a darn thing about until the next day. Ugh! Who can sleep now!?!

Then Friday came. See? We make it. Despite everything to the contrary, we make it.

On Friday, there’s a tiny bit of a “hope boost”, isn’t there? It’s organic. Naturally built into even a stressful week. The weekend is so close we can taste it. Just get the children out the door and onto their buses and we’re golden! The Things will have time to play, read, breathe, do nothing. If I’m lucky, so will I! This is enough to get me through the day, but on this particular Friday a beautiful thing happened. A very kind message left on my iThing by the VP at Thing 1’s school, praising Thing 1 for something that had occurred the day before. A reminder that the things we do and say make a difference, not only in the lives of our Things, but also in the lives of their friends and classmates (and teachers). Kindness.

I cried. Yup. I cried in my car in the parking lot of a bulk food store. Then I laughed at my ridiculousness and went to buy Chia (You know? Ch-ch-ch-chia!) for my smoothies because – gosh darn it – this year I am going to be BETTER!